The Virtual Eco-Image: A New Form of Hybrid Life
摘要
The article discusses some aspects of an ontology of the virtual, where the virtual is considered as a new type of entity that emerges through digital technologies. It is an ontological hybrid that combines body and image, object and event, internal and external. This virtual entity arises from the interaction between computer programming and the human body, enhanced by technological prosthetics. Although these entities are clearly artificial, they possess an innate impulse for change that is not tied to their natural components, but to their nature as events. In this context, the term ‘hybrid’ refers to a fusion of the artificial and the natural, almost like a ‘living’ system. Virtual entities are not just objects or events, but also subjects, existing only through the encounter between digital writing and the bodies that interact with it. This leads to a conception of relationships as fundamental to the constitution of these entities, suggesting that the interactions themselves can give rise to new realities.